FADER PREMIERE:
The first time I heard Blanche Blanche Blanche was a couple of years ago, at a sparsely attended noise show my band randomly got signed up to play in the dining room of Hampshire College in Western Massachusetts. BBB is the duo of Zach Phillips and Sarah Smith, who recently relocated from nearby Brattleboro, VT to New York, but I'm not sure if Smith was really an official member of the group at that point, because it was just Phillips singing unmic'd over a series of short, jazzy melodies he was playing on a keyboard. The practice amp he was using sounded like it was on its last legs, but it's the only set I really remember from that night, because Phillips was literally overflowing with insane, convoluted musical ideas, in a way that seemed incongruous with the abbreviated nature of the songs and the humble means he was using to convey them.
Today, BBB announced that they have a new LP in the works called Breaking Mirrors. It's isn't their first full-length effort, but it's the first one they ever recorded in a proper studio, which is miles away from the context in which I initially heard their music. Following the digital hi-fi aesthetic of their 2013 Wooden Ball release, this one's a more steadfast recreation of the full band sound they've been honing in the live setting. Accordingly, the bass and guitar sounds on "I Just Wanna Know" sound crisper and punchier than ever, but what's cool about BBB is that the higher production values feel more like a way of drawing out the inner dementedness of their constructions. Listen to the song in the background, and it just sounds like a catchy punk track, but zero in on the way that Smith's vocals are subtly out-of-phase with the instrumentals, and you're in for a brain-number (with the random broken glass sounds at the end kind of confirming this). Breaking Mirrors is out November 5th via Wharf Cat Records. Tracklist below.
Stream: Blanche Blanche Blanche, "I Just Wanna Know"
1. Breaking Mirrors (1:27)
2. Crowd Noise (2:45)
3. Zeroing In ( 2:37)
4. That's The Ad (1:28)
5. TED Talks (1:27)
6. Market Thrush ( 2:10)
7. Fire (3:33)
8. Arrive Alive (2:15)
9. Flash The Bios (1:20)
10. Grey Pet ( 2:44)
11. Rich Man (1:40)
12. Omega Ade (2:03)
13. Fisted (2:41)
14. I Just Wanna Know (1:54)